Unsigned typed letter, one page both sides, 8.25 x 10.5, 52 Tavistock Sq. letterhead, December 12, no year but circa 1933. Letter to her nephew Quentin Bell, in full (spelling and grammar retained): "If you were here today—a very foggy cold day—I should say to you, My dear Quentin, if you will take me, I will come. What to? you may ask. To which I reply, number three Belgrave Square. Who the devil lives there? you would say. And in one word I should reply; a cocktail party given by the Hutchinsons to anticipate their daughters marriage to the richest Jew in Europe. Oysters and champagne cup. But as youre not here, and its foggy, and its gloomy, and Ive no clothes, and cant be bothered to rush out and buy gloves, hat, and shoes, all for a Jew, I sit in my underground vault, with the fog thick on the skylight, writing—oh dear how happy I am not to go! We had the young couple the other night; and they brought a brown bag; and out of this they lifted rubies—rubies set in diamonds. And we all crowned ourselves with the Rothschild rubies; worth £300,000. Well? Nessa and Duncan came in, and said they made just as good in Regent Street. But the diamonds were nice; like spiders webs—immortal spiders webs; spiders webs made in the valleys of the moon. But Nessa will tell you that she didnt like the flavour of the Jew. Like raw pork, she said. Surely rather an unkind saying? Barbara I like; I think she's flying her little flag gamely; but she'll founder they say; in six months, she'll be looking out of the window, and seeing a trim, spare Englishman, and sighing, Oh if I were back in my native feilds. Thats Nessa again.
Yesterday I had Ethel Smyth—who adores you, and says youre the image of what she's sought in man all her life, and would marry you, given a dogs chance—and Rebecca West to tea. It was a screaming howling party. Old Ethel meanders so. And shes so deaf. And shes so violent. But she is, to give her her due, very shrewd. and she has battered about the world like a buccaneer, and so when Leonard claps his hand on her mouth, she sits silent, for a second. Rebecca is the oddest woman; like an arboreal animal grasping a tree, and showing all her teeth, as if another animal were about to seize her young. This may be the result of having a son out of wedlock. However she is tenacious and masterful and very good company, having also battered about in the stinking underworld of hack writers—people like Priestley, Lynd, Squire, and others so covered with mud one cant name them even. They discussed Mrs Pankhurst, and how she smelt when hunger striking; apparently, if you dont drink you smell horribly after three days.
Leonard is at this moment closeted with Lyn Irvine who wants to start a new paper (keep this to yourself) written entirely by her self; and printed on a cyclo style. This is a last effort on her part to speak the truth and make a living. Its come out fortnightly, and give her views on politics, art, letters, life. Would you do a drawing—but she cant pay, and I daresay the first number will only beget three more; and then it will die. Life and Letters is dying. They all die.
We went to Orpheus—the loveliest opera every written—at Sadlers Wells; and there was a congeries of old fogies—Ottoilne hawking and mousing; Stephen Spender, being hawked and moused; Helen, the Russian children; Oliver and a hard featured lady who inspires him with rapture; also a young woman called Lynd, whom I think you might like. Good bye now, as I am not being very amusing, but then all the time I am feeling, ought I to go Belgrave Square? What's happening to Malcolm Sargent and his sheets? And the alps your grandfather climbed?" Woolf adds several handwritten corrections to the text, as well as a postscript to the conclusion, "I suppose you read Roger's inaugural lecture. I wonder what you thought of it.” In fine condition, with intersecting folds and a light diagonal crease to the lower right quadrant.
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